The School

Ballet Tech, the NYC Public School for Dance, provides its students with a high quality academic education and intensive, rigorous classical dance training.

Ballet Tech – a collaboration between the NYC Department of Education and Ballet Tech Foundation, Inc. – combines the best of public education and professional arts instruction. Students in the Lower School (grades 4-5) and Middle School (grades 6-8) study both academics and dance on-site at 890 Broadway. High School students attend the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) in Midtown for their academic classes and come to Ballet Tech for their dance training.

The Lower School

Grades 4 & 5

Ballet Tech’s Lower School welcomes students into a learning environment that promotes student engagement, fosters strong work habits, and facilitates high-level critical thinking. During their first two years of dance training, students are introduced to the fundamental principles of classical ballet.

The Middle School

Grades 6 - 8

Ballet Tech’s Middle School builds on the academic foundation established in the 4th and 5th grades, raising the level of intellectual rigor while also addressing the social and emotional needs unique to middle school students. At the same time, dance training increases to 5 days a week. In addition to daily ballet technique classes, students take pointe and modern dance, and have the opportunity to learn repertory and perform.

The High School

Grades 9-12

Ballet Tech’s High School students enroll at the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) for their academic classes while continuing in Ballet Tech’s advanced, pre-professional dance program. The High School program is extensive and exciting, and includes the opportunity to work directly with professional choreographers. Students graduate from Ballet Tech ready for the next phase in their professional dance or collegiate careers.

Ballet Tech offered me an extremely rare opportunity that others only dream about. The foundation of my young brain was strengthened and grew immensely in a way that conventional learning would never allow.

Peter Cirolia

No, [I’m not dancing] but I continue to move as a soccer player and think it’s fair to say that any occasional grace I show on the field I owe to BT training. I also feel, immodestly, that I might be more perceptive than the average “So You Think You Can Dance” viewer.

Irene Zouroudis

Ballet Tech was a place of discovery and growth. I was introduced to the importance of professionalism at a young age, and I learned a great deal of what it meant to be a dancer in daily ballet classes and rehearsals.

Lucy Postell

Dancer, Martha Graham Dance Company

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Kids Dance

“A New York City Treasure.”— The New York Times

Kids Dance is Ballet Tech’s student performance troupe. It performs annually at the Joyce Theater, presenting past dances and new choreography by Eliot Feld. In 2016 Ballet Tech launched a commissioning project to build a library of new choreography imagined for and designed on emerging dancers. Julia Eichten’s Monsieur and Brian Brooks’s Panorama were the first additions to this library.

Faculty and Staff

Alumni

Since 1978, Ballet Tech has auditioned 827,655 public school children and enrolled 20,977.

In addition to performing with Ballet Tech, alumni have joined such preeminent companies as Alvin Ailey, American Ballet Theatre, Battery Dance Company, Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble, Dance Theatre of Harlem, John Passafiume Dancers, New York City Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, have performed on Broadway, and have pursued higher education at colleges and universities including Brandeis, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Hunter College, Penn State, Skidmore, St. John’s and SUNY Purchase.

Are you a Ballet Tech alum? Keep in touch with Ballet Tech by adding your contact information to our alumni registry.

Ballet Tech taught me discipline, hard work and how to move my body through space with intent. I still rely on those lessons learned in my work every day as an architect, although instead of moving through space with intent, I create it.

Jesse Walton

Ballet Tech will always mean family, unity, and pride. Ballet Tech remains the unique and significant experience of my past that built my character and gave me the foundation of discipline and commitment that I have applied to every aspect of my life.

Codi-Ann Dyer

The physical and mental foundation that years of intense ballet training imparted is invaluable. The quick thinking, the discipline, and the motivation to push on even when you feel like giving up goes beyond the dance studio.

Dagny Miller

Ballet Tech was a new beginning for me, a stepping stone to my dance career. It molded me into the dancer I am today. BT taught me discipline, responsibility, leadership, and influenced my character at a very young age.

Nickemil Concepcion

Dancer, Cedar Lake Dance Company

I don’t believe there are any words to describe how much Ballet Tech means to me. It was there where I began my dance career. My Ballet Tech teachers gave me the intangible gifts of love, support, ballet technique, and artistry, which I continue to cherish to this day.

Raven Barkley

SUNY Purchase, BFA in Dance; Professional Dancer, Charlotte Ballet

I honestly feel that I owe everything I am and everything I have to Ballet Tech. This program gives children an opportunity to study classical ballet and possibly make a career out of it, which I did.